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Bears may lose stadium deal
In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a football stadium has been destroyed -- and it had yet to be built. By 2003, a new home was to be constructed for the Bears, an extravagant lakefront colossus that promised to make Chicago one of the top revenue-producing teams in the NFL. With the new stadium, Bears chairman Michael McCaskey and his family would have seen the value of their franchise increase by $200 million or more. The stadium package was supposed to be a dream deal, a combination of private and public financing that would have made all parties happy. The team and Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley rammed it through the Illinois legislature in less than two weeks last November, while news organizations were focused on the presidential-election recounts in Florida. But when details of the deal became known, a storm began to gather. The stadium was to be built on top of Soldier Field, an arena dedicated to soldiers who died in World War I; the Bears were given the valuable right to sell a new name to the highest bidder; the facility was to sit on Chicago's precious lakefront, instead of on vacant property near Comiskey Park, with better expressway access, better public transportation and more parking. And its design provoked a crescendo of outrage. Blair Kamin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic of The Chicago Tribune, called it a "monstrosity" and an "eyesore." People stood around a model of the stadium on display in downtown Chicago and shook their heads in disbelief. Plans called for the stadium to rise 14 stories above the sidewalk, a giant, futuristic bowl pushed down on the classical, doric columns of the old Soldier Field. Print and broadcast critics fulminated that the project was an abomination. As the waves of criticism grew, Mayor Daley stayed the course. The deal was done, he repeated again and again. But increasingly, Daley and McCaskey became isolated. Theirs was an unlikely alliance: a second-generation, Irish Catholic mayor in partnership with a third-generation sports mogul, a graduate of Yale and Harvard whose aristocratic pretenses have made him the least-popular team owner in a city full of unpopular team owners. In fact, in early 1999 McCaskey's own mother, Virginia McCaskey, the daughter of NFL legend George Halas, removed Michael as president and CEO of the Bears, "promoting" him to chairman, and installed Ted Phillips to run day-to-day operations. Litigation attacking the deal had enjoyed early successes. People were fuming over the idea of the Bears renaming the stadium, perceiving it as an insult to America's soldiers. And then came Sept. 11. A bond sale to raise $399 million of the $606 million needed to build the stadium was scheduled to begin. With the financial markets unstable and fervor building for the war on terrorism, Daley saw his opportunity. In a press conference Tuesday, Daley said he had never liked the idea of renaming Soldier Field. It was a strange statement, given that the 30-page memorandum of understanding between the city and the Bears guarantees that the team "shall receive and retain all revenue from naming rights." This was a critical element of the deal for the club, which expected to generate $10 million a year for 30 years on the stadium name. Daley's announcement came as a cheap shot, a late hit to the Bears. It changes the deal substantially. The Bears can huff and puff, but there is nothing they can do. Their only hope for a new stadium is to build it in a partnership with the mayor. As much as the loss of the $300 million in naming rights may hurt, the pain will soon be worse for the Bears. Daley's statement is a clear signal that he is looking for a way out of a deal that has become profoundly embarrassing. It is clear that Daley does not want his legacy to include a lakefront eyesore and a windfall for the McCaskey family. As federal air-safety procedures will change in the wake of the terrorist attacks, so, too, will the Chicago sports landscape be revamped. Sports Illustrated legal analyst Lester Munson regularly holds court on sports law and business matters for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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